This short essay was written a year or so ago after I did research to better understand the history of my religion.  I have an insatiable need to go digging about and figuring out how and why things turned out the way they did.  This is one of the many things that lead me to study anthropology in college. 

This history goes back threw the timeline that most Americans will find more useful.  America > Britain > Roman/Egyptian > Cro-Magnon > Primitive.  I left out most of the native spiritualities that are present around the world.  Attempting to write a history that detailed would be a lifetimes worth of research :)

History of Paganism

By: Sesh

          Paganism is an umbrella term that means any religion that didn’t come from Abraham – anything besides Christian, Islamic, Jewish or Muslim (which are all descended from the same teachings).  Paganism is the world’s oldest religious practice, dating back to the dawn of human conscious, and going forward into the present day and into the future.  Even though the Abrahamic religions did much to exterminate Paganism in their areas of the world, there are many religions that were never touched or influenced by them, such as Hinduism, Native American beliefs and Shintoism.

Ancient Burial Mounds

          Pagans are people whose practices are usually based around the primal and personal aspects of life.   These practices are used today as they have always been: to ensure plentiful food, wealth, safety, health and fertility.  

  

To ancient peoples, everything had a spirit and every spirit had a purpose.  Archeologists say even primitive humans had a concept of the afterlife that sprang up about the time the first recorded religious practice did. 

Ancestor worship is probably one of the first religions in the world.  Ancient cultures began to see death as a transition and sets of beliefs sprang up to theorize what happened to the human psyche when the body died.  From primitive cultures to ancient times humans believed in life after death and the ability of the dead to influence us today.  The Ancient Egyptians and Romans held such beliefs.  The latter of who borrowed heavily from the Greek and Etruscans.  Modern cultural religions that still follow this belief include the Japanese, Chinese, Native American and most of the indigenous African religions.

Shamanistic Medicine Man

          Another of the oldest forms of religion is animism and shamanism.  Humans were afraid and became reverent of the animals in their everyday world.  Traces of animism survived primitive times and were continued into ancient cultures and then onward into modern cultures.  Osiris and Jehovah were worshiped as Bulls; Jesus was the Lamb of God; most Egyptian gods had animal counterparts, and the Holy Spirit of Christianity was a Dove and Shamans work with and invoke animal spirits.

As humanity realized it could plan crops and grow food, rites and superstitions developed around agriculture.  This lead to the rising of the first Deity, a fertility Goddess.  Examples of early Goddesses include Venus of Willindworf and the Willendworf Goddess.  It was though that women alone held the power of fertility and so the first God to be worshiped was actually a Goddess.  It wasn’t till much later than men realized that *ahem* they had a hand in the process.

Venus of Willendorf

             The earliest religious symbols were found in Kalahari Dessert in Botswana and Willendorf Austria.  A famous image amongst modern pagans, the figure from Austria shows a woman who is obviously well fed and maybe pregnant.  This statue, thought to be an ancient fertility or crop Goddess, and is also though to be a magical talisman.  The shape of the statue, and the implications behind how someone could also look that way, is though to be a plea to the early Deity of Willendorf for as much food and fertility.

The carved head of a python found in the Kalahari Dessert dates to 70,000 years ago and has recently been discovered to be the oldest religious artifact in human history.  This supports the theory that animism and animal worship was the world’s first religion.

Sympathetic magic is probably the oldest magic known to date.  Examples, such as rain dances, are still used to this day.  The stamping of the feet symbolizes the rain batting the ground.  Great importance was put on using sympathetic magic in hunts, fertility rights and to make crops grown.  Anyone familiar with the Arthurian legends will recognize the last vestments of the ancient fertility and hunting rites in the way Author came to impregnate his half-sister.

As groups of people moved from being hunter-gatherer tribes and settled into agrarian cultures, people started making offerings and working religious rites in honor of the spirits who rules over crops and wealth.  This is the beginning of true religion.  These Deities were though to be separate entities, and not just archetypical stereotypes.   The names of early Gods and Goddesses are lost to us, but other ancient deities (i.e. Celtic, Egyptian and Roman) are well known and worshiped to this day. 

Deities became a part of everyday life for ancient cultures around the world.  Emphasis was put on appeasing and appealing to these Deities for everything from finding lost objects to getting a good mate.  As man-made occurrences such as war and marriage came to exist, more and more specialized Deities evolved. 

The evolution of Deities can be traced back for thousands of years, threw names and associations- even from one culture to another.  During the Hellenistic period in Egypt, for instance, swapped Deities quite often.  New names evolved from the combination of two cultures religions and Gods such as Serapis were created.

Makes this Guy... Somehow

This Guy

Plus This Guy

There was a Deity for everything and everything had a Deity.  Every house and family had their shrines to household guardians and ancestors.  Eventually, these God/desses began to take on other responsibility that was sympathetic to their original aspect.  The rain, for instance, came to clean not just the body but the spirit and soul.  God/desses were given names and personified.  Along with war and marriage, crafts and cooking and government came to have their own God/desses.

Selu, Corn Woman

Beliefs started to vary between groups of humans around the time the Deities started taking on names and specialized priesthoods.  Agro-tribes met other agro-tribes and settled into communities.  With their shared knowledge, helping hands and their religious practices, lifespan lengthened, disease took a back seat and language and writing developed.  Communities became towns and towns became races and races became kingdoms.

             Whenever one country would invade another they would do one of three things: Adopt the loosing countries God/desses (as in the previous Serapis example) and blend them with their own, quench the native religion or allow the current Deities to be worshiped, but erect temples to their Gods.  The Romans were such victors.  They would allow a current population to worship their own but demanded they pay homage to Roman Deities.

Egyptians, Not Christians, Invented Monotheism

            A notable major religious revolution happened around this time in history.  Ankanatan attempted to unite all of Egypt under one All-Powerful God – the Atan.  He at first though to gradually replace the traditional Deities with his One Deity.  Latter all the temples of other Deities were closed and their priesthoods disbanded.  However, after Atenatens death, the polytheism returned to Egypt. 

            Several theories suggest that the Christian religion is a continuation of the religion of the All Powerful Aten.  Latter it is though that Mary and Jesus were taken from Isis and Horus the Savior.  Since the Christians did not believe other Gods existed they refused to pay homage to Roman God/desses.  They weren’t persecuted, as so many believed, for being Christian; they were punished for disobeying the law. 

Can I have What's Behind Door Number 2?

              For a long time the Romans hesitated to do anything to Christians.  But for their insistence that there was only one God, the Romans would have left them along.  This threatened the stability of religion in the Roman’s vast empire.  One thing that kept native people placated was the right to worship their own Gods.  Christianity threatened to take that right away from the people.  Also, with their refusal to perform ruler worship to the current Emperor, they were being disloyal subjects and were punished thus.

               How the Christians became so powerful is a matter of study.  Without going into those details, one theory suggests it was the Christians willingness to become martyrs for their God that willingly converted enough followers that eventually rulers were converted.   Another is that the Christians did what the Romans before them had done and gradually took over the ancient spots of worship and either replaced those Dieties with the Christian pantheon or adopted those Deities and latter declared the old worship of those same Deities as against the new religion.

Celtic Goddess turned Christian Saint

              Constantine I (Emperor of Rome) was the first Roman ruler to convert to Christianity and lift the bans on that religion.  Shortly after Christianity was declaired the official state religoin of Rome.  As a result, Christianity spread threw the wold whiping out and persecuting Pagans as far as they were able to reach.  Only a few places excaped such forced conversion and millions of pepole died.  As a result, many religions went underground or moved to other locations.  America, for instance, seems to be a melting pot of folk religion from Germany, England, China and all over the world.  

            Most of these underground religions died, but enough of some of them survived.  Secred societies were able to take them up and use them to compliment already existing practices.  Freemasons, The Order of the Golden Dawn, Bavarian Order of Illuminati, Ordo Templi Orientis (Crowley’s Group) and many, many others.

Though there aren’t any proven links to ancient Celtic, Italian, etc relgions,  bits and pieces have survied in one form or another.

          In England in Elizabeth’s day John Dee, a phychic, practiced witchcraft openly and in the 16^th century Charles Leland claimed to have gotten “The Gospel of the Witch” from an Italian witch who’s practices, she claimed, survieved the Burning Times.

Colonel Sanders?
Nope, Try Again

          In the ‘50s the last of England’s witchcraft laws were repealed and Gerald Garner started Wicca.   This brought Paganism into the light again and thoes hungering for a religion that accepts our connection and oneness with nature quicly took the idea and ran with it.  Garner is the father of the moder Neo-Pagan movement and modern practitioners are still writing the history.

          In 1955 the last of the Witchcraft laws in England were repealed.  This allowed thoes who had been practicing these religions threw secret societies or in small clutters of folk religion to come forward into the light.  This allowed validation for thoes who have always felt that Abrahamic religions were not sufficient, to shop around for a religious experience that appeals to them. 

          In 1985 Wicca was given legal status in the United States.  America, being the land of consumerism, ate it up by the doses.  The earliest recorded non-Wiccan Pagan religion was the Neo-Pagan group called the Temple of Aphrodite in Rhode Island.  Structured Paganism filled a very real need for a more personal and deep spirituality amongs the Americans.  It also allowed us to connect with our non-American roots.  As a country that is a melting pot of all the countries of the world, we don’t have firmly established roots as a country and therefor are missing out own indiginous religion.

          Neo-Paganism differs from Paganism as one is a moder reconstruction of the ancient religions and the other is a continuation of the ancient religions.

Modern Paganism includes the following list:

Secret Societies – Bits and pieces of ancient religious parctice combined with information from modern sources.  Most are eclectic and borrow tradition from a variety of sources and are heavily reliant on symbolisn and internal alchemy.

Reconstructionists – Piecing together a true and acurate ancient religion and bringing thoes practices forth into the modern age.  Two kinds of reconstructionist types exists: One that is attempting to bring forth ancient religions without changing the religion or faith at all (example includes Kemetic Orthodox Faith).  The other is attempting to use ancient practices but change them to reflect changes to modern society (example includes the Isian faith).  Examples include debating animal sacrifice’s place in modern religion.

Buddhist Nuns Praying

Neo-Paganism – Constructing a very general religion based on bits and pieces of ancient relgions cobled together from various sources.  Neopaganism started with the Wiccan religion, but has since branched out to mean any modern-day reconstruction-type religion that is following ancient practices but not from any specific ancient religion.

Pagans – Religions which have not be influenced by the persecution of non-Abrahamic faith and have continued threw hundreds, if not thousands of years.  Native American spiritualities and Hinduism are amongst these. 

Sources

1. Paganism: Past and Present
2. Serapis
3. History of Ordo Templi Orientis
4. Aradia, or Gospel of the Witches
5. Constantine the Great (Constantine I)
6. Venus of Willendorf
7. Blunt use of Search Engines
8. Oldest Known Religious Object - Carved Python Head
9. Anhenaten and Atenism
10. Witchvox: History of Paganism in America